With over 50,000 iPhone apps to choose from, there's a mind-boggling number of ways to make your favorite device do just about anything you can imagine -- and almost certainly a few things you would never think of. While it's not hard to find apps for your iPhone or iPod Touch, it's frustratingly difficult to find the best ones.

Best iPhone Apps guides the way, shining the light on over 200 gee-whiz apps that delight, empower, and entertain. Author Josh Clark stress-tested thousands of titles from the App Store emporium to hand-pick apps that will make the biggest difference in every aspect of your life: at work, on the town, at play, at home, and on the road.

Capitalize on your time with genius productivity apps, or fritter it away with deliriously fun games. However you use your iPhone or iPod Touch, Best iPhone Apps shows you how to unlock its full potential and make the most of your glossy gadget.

Josh Clark

Josh Clark is a writer, designer, and developer who helps creative people get clear of technical hassle to share their ideas with the world. When he's not writing about clever design and humane software, he's building it. Josh is the creator of Big Medium, friendly software that actually makes it fun to manage a Web site and he's the author of iWork '09: The Missing Manual. In a previous life, Josh worked on a slew of national PBS programs at Boston's WGBH. He shared his three words of Russian with Mikhail Gorbachev, strolled the ranch with Nancy Reagan, and wrote trivia questions for a primetime game show. Now Josh makes words and spins code at his hypertext laboratory globalmoxie.com in Paris, France, where he lives with his wife Ellen.

With SignTouch, take a photo and ask somebody (friend or celebrity) to sign your screen or to leave a message. Resize your message and/or your signature, change the colour of the writing and position it where you want on the photo you have just taken.

As a new iPod Touch owner with absolutely zero experience or knowledge of "Apps", I found the manual very informative. The examples of only a sample of Apps available, many that can be used on the TOUCH, was mind-boggling. As a retired Graphic Artist, I was impressed with the graphics and how well written I found the information. I would have liked to see the addition of a "TOUCH" icon where applicable.

So you've got your fancy iPhone and you've browsed the web, made phone calls, and played the heck out of the iPod. What's next? Why, the App Store of course. For those who have been living under a rock, the app store is part of Apple's online store, and it can greatly extend your iPhone or iPod Touch's capabilities. You can download, for free or for a modest fee, a wealth of over 100,000 applications. New applications are constantly being added. These applications (Apple calls them "apps") run a wide spectrum of usability, from work to play, to travel, or use at home. The app store is organized by categories, but it can be difficult to sift through all the numerous apps available. Josh Clark's new book sorts out the clunkers and gives us only the best apps out there.

Content: The book itself is glossy, colorful, and slick. It is laid out in easy-to-follow categories: "At Work", "On the Town", "At Leisure", "At Play", "At Home", and "On the Road". These main categories are color-coded on the page edges and have icons for quickly finding apps suited to your pursuits. These categories are further broken down into subcategories to help you find exactly what you need. For example, different genres of games in the "At Play" section, or "News and Media" in the "At Leisure" section. There is a table of contents for quickly finding what you need, and is broken down by category and subsection.

You could certainly read the book cover-to-cover, but to me, it is most useful as a reference to look up whatever type of app appeals to you. Say you're looking to lose some weight and wanted to find the best app for watching your calories. You assess the seven main categories and choose "For Your Health", and of its three subsections, choose "General Fitness: Best App for..." and within that "Dieting and Weight Loss" on page 214. On page 214 you'd find a review of the "Lose It" app with four screenshots and a review.

The writing is conversational and easy to follow. This book is appealing and highly readable overall.

Strengths:--Apps arranged into categories that make sense. Makes it easy to look them up.--Colorful, graphics really jump out. Writing style is conversational and easily accessible.--Most screen shots are different from those in the app store. This can help you make a better choice than if you were just in the app store itself.--Online version free for 45 days.

Weaknesses:--A glossary would be nice. I remembered the name of an application but couldn't find it easily. Thankfully the table of contents makes apps quite easy to find.--Lacks a Free vs. Paid section. I'm thrifty, and it would be nice to see what I could get for free. The App Store has this, to some extent.--Technology — new apps come out every day, and there is no transition from the book into an ongoing update. This is of course the huge challenge faced by traditional print media in today's world. It would be nice if the author had a website/RSS/twitter/blog, maybe he could update readers if shining new apps have come to light.

Summary:Best iPhone Apps is well written and provides an excellent summary of many of the best apps out there. It really condenses the App Store into a thoughtful display of the best of breed in many categories, and does it in a colorful book that you can read at your leisure.

This book saves you all sorts of time because he has done the dirty work for you. The author checks out many popular programs for the iPhone-both free and with a minimal charge-and rates them. He also tells you a little background about the apps so you can make an informed decision prior to downloading the app. I found some really cool apps courtesy of this book and I wouldn't have found them without his assistance. The book also offers great pictures for ease of use. It is a quick read and a great resource for when you are looking for a certain type of application. I would put it on the top of my Christmas list for the person who has everything.

This is a wonderful book. I own a copy and have given copies to iPhone-using friends and colleagues. Just browsing through the table of contents gave me ideas about entire categories of apps that I had not even considered. I then went and downloaded apps in several areas.

I have tested 200-300 apps myself and I keep track of the best apps in many categories. I also consistently read what reviewers say. One thing I particularly like about this book is that the author's choice generally agrees very closely with mine. That is, the book's number one choice in a category is generally either my #1 or #2 choice. That fact gives me high confidence in the book, so I can use it to acquire excellent apps in areas where I have not done much research.